...trudging into the distance in the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus...the Lord out of dust had created him, had made him blood and nerve and mind, had made him to bleed and weep and think, and set him in a world of loss and fire... --Flannery O'Connor

My old friend Lucifer came / Fought to keep me in chains / But I saw through the tricks / Of six-sixty-six --Johnny Cash

Post navigation

Idolatry, Oppression and the Development of Demons: Part 7, The Gods of the Nations Became the Demons

All of the preceding posts have been tracing out a simple development. It started with "sons of God" ruling over the nations as national, regional deities. These national gods--like the Canaanite god Moloch--tempt the Israelites into idolatry, worship that was accompanied by oppressive practices such as child sacrifice. The spectacle of that wickedness darkened the aspect of these national deities.

So the shift occurred, the gods of the nations became the demons.

Deuteronomy 32.17
They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.

Psalm 106.36-38
They served their idols,
which became a snare to them.

They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to the demons;

they poured out innocent blood,
the blood of their sons and daughters,

whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
and the land was polluted with blood.

Galatians 4.8
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.

1 Corinthians 10.20
No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.

Over the last few posts we've been slowly working toward these texts. And now the main points can be stated concisely.